Day 3 was filled with even more partying. I miss San Diego but am having an absolute blast up here. We all woke up and took our showers before heading back down to Pemberton where we had lunch at the bar. I got a chicken sandwich and I gotta say, it was pretty good too. Michael, Gaile, and my dad each got a hamburger and it was probably the best hamburger I’ve ever had. The meat was just so good and fresh, I couldn’t believe it. Jamie and Sheila sure have some good things going on at that bar.
After lunch, my dad, brother, and Gaile took Mary back up to Mankato so she could pick up the shuttle to the airport. That all went according to plan. While they were gone, the rest of us were back at Sheila’s helping set up for Megan’s graduation party. The rain kept coming and going and everyone was getting nervous and anxious not knowing what the rain would do. About a half hour before the party started, the rain stopped for the rest of the night and so we got our party on.
Partied from 4:00PM-10:00PM. It was another good time just hanging out and milling around with people. The karaoke machine got brought out and so the singing commenced. It was pretty amusing and fun to laugh, but at the same time I would never go up there and subject myself to the same humiliation; heh. Once it got dark, out came the fireworks (literally). My cousin John got out a big firework disk that shot up about 40 feet in the air and then exploded as stars. It lasted about 30 seconds and was freakin awesome. After that we pretty much packed up and headed back to the hotel where I just sat around and talked with my parents.
So that was all yesterday (Saturday), and then today was sightseeing day. We all got up, got ready, checked out of the hotel, and headed out sightseeing through Mankato. I got pissed/scared though because when we were parked and looking for a place to eat, my new camera lens rolled off the seat and out of the van and straight onto the asphalt parking lot. Everything checked out okay but I was mad at myself for being so careless. In our driving around, we saw the house my dad grew up in, my mom’s old house, the church in which they were married, and even the school they were attending when they met. We also headed out to the Rapidan Dam and got some good photos. While we were at the dam, some thunderstorms started building and popping up, so we thought that would be a good time to do some storm chasing. We ran into a pretty decent storm and got some good pictures. No real lightning though, but a lot of rain and wind, so that was cool at least.
Once we finished our sightseeing, we headed up to the cities and dropped Michael and Gaile off at the airport (Michael just now called me to tell me that they arrived in San Diego just fine, so all’s well). We headed back down to Pemberton after the airport where we all just hung out and played some Rummy Royal (also sometimes called Tripoli). Afterwards I spent over a half hour on the phone with Courtney just talking and catching up. I wanted some peace and quiet while I talked to her because there were so many people in the house it was difficult to find a quiet spot. I ended up just sitting in the car because I was afraid of the mosquitos eating me alive. At this moment I have no less than 8 mosquitos bites, the majority of which are itching me quite badly.
So now, here I sit, in a very dark kitchen finally getting tired so I’m gonna wrap this up and get to bed.